Forgiving Isn't Always Forgetting
by SometimesIWish
Summary: Santana was tired. She was so tired of fighting and being angry and maybe that was the reason she forgave Finn so quickly. Brittany, on the other hand, was different.


Santana was tired.

She was so tired of fighting and being angry and maybe that was the reason she forgave Finn so quickly. Because every night when she went to bed she would just collapse from the exhaustion of it all, the pressure of all the emotions she carried around with her on a daily basis pushing her down into she could barely breathe anymore.

Finn didn't understand what he did to her and he probably never would. It was a lesson he never learned despite having a gay brother who dates another guy. He's had to learn over and over again that being gay isn't a bad thing and that he needed to be careful around kids who weren't out publicly. But it still hasn't been drilled into his head.

And Santana accepted that. She knew that she couldn't change him and while she would never like him and would never be friends with him, she could stick a smile on her face whenever she saw him and be polite to him.

Brittany, on the other hand, was different.

"I don't understand why you put up with him," Brittany said as she handed Santana the big bowl of ice cream and flopped down on the couch next to her. She picked one of the two spoons out of the bowl and put a large spoonful of chocolate ice cream in her mouth. "He never learned his lesson and you're just reinforcing that what he did wasn't so bad."

"Aren't you reinforcing everyone's ideas of you when you pretend to be ditzy?" Santana shot back, spooning some ice cream into her mouth. "Britt, I understand that you don't like Finn and that you're not happy with him. I feel the same way. I just want to move past this and pretend like it never happened for a little while. I can't deal with it right now."

The blonde looked at Santana. "Let me deal with it."

"What?"

"Let me deal with it," Brittany repeated, her eyes and tone of voice earnest. "San, they all think I'm stupid so they won't suspect a thing from me, especially Finn. And he needs to be told that he's wrong. I know for a fact that Kurt has just been ignoring him and that hasn't done anything because Finn just thinks Kurt is mad at him for not cleaning out the shower. Rachel hasn't done anything, really, either, other than giving him a lecture and he just tunes out for most of it. Mr. Schuster isn't any help. Let me do something about it, San. Please."

Santana just shook her head, set the spoon back in the bowl, and shut her eyes. "Please, Brittany, don't," she whispered so quietly that Brittany had to lean in to hear what she was saying. "I can't… just please don't do that."

"San…."

"Why are you so set on this?" Santana snapped, turning to Brittany. "You've been bugging me about talking to Finn every day for the past week. He said he was sorry. He sang me a song. I forgave him."

Brittany cradled Santana's face in her hands as tears leaked out of the corners of the Latina's eyes. "Because he isn't sorry," Brittany whispered. "How can he be sorry when he doesn't know how much he hurt you? One song he sang to you out of obligation doesn't do anything."

"He said he was sorry," Santana said quietly, pleading with her eyes for Brittany to just drop it.

"Does him saying he was sorry keep you from crying yourself to sleep every night?" Brittany asked. "Does it fix your relationship with your Abuela? Does it take back that campaign ad that all of Ohio, and probably everyone else in the United States, is able to watch? Does it take away the knowledge about your sexuality from everyone you haven't personally told? Does it keep you from hurting?"

The Latina shook her head, tears running down her face.

"He can't be sorry if he doesn't see what I see," Brittany whispered, pressing her forehead against Santana's. "I see how afraid you are, now, when you go out in public. I know you cry yourself to sleep every night because your Abuela doesn't approve of you and me. And I can't let that go, Santana. Let me protect you for once."

"I don't… I don't need…."

"Don't play this off, Santana," Brittany begged. "I'm not like everyone at school. I can see right through you and I know that you haven't forgiven him. I know you're still angry. I know that more than anything you want to see him get what he deserves. Please just let me do this for you."

Santana collapsed into her arms, sobs wracking her body as she let Brittany hold her and comfort her and whisper in her ear.

A week later, Brittany pulled Finn aside after glee to talk with him. He gave her a dopey grin, hiking his book bag up higher on his back, and waited for her to start talking, giving her a little sympathetic smile when she opened and closed her mouth a few times before actually starting.

"I don't like you," she said, and his grin was instantly wiped off his face at it was replaced with a confused expression. "I don't really think I ever have, but now I hate you more than I like you and that's never happened to me with anyone before."

"What?" he asked incredulously. "What did I do?"

"You hurt Santana," she said, staring up challengingly into his eyes. "You outed her when she wasn't ready yet."

He gave her another sympathetic smile. "Britt, we already went through this a while ago," he said gently like he was talking to a child. "Santana forgave me…."

"No, I don't think you get it," Brittany snapped, cutting him off. "Santana may have _said_ she forgave you, but she hates you just as much as I do. Just because you say you're sorry and sing a stupid song for her doesn't mean everything is forgiven. You hurt her really bad, Finn, and I don't think anyone understands just how much. Not even me."

"She said she forgave me," he insisted.

"Did you know she cries herself to sleep every night because of what you did to her?" Brittany asked, completely surprising him. "Yeah, whenever I sleep over, which is a lot more than I used to because she can barely sleep anymore, I hold her until she falls asleep, exhausted from crying. Even if she had forgiven you, she would still be hurting. I bet you're still hurt after everything that happened between you, Quinn, and Puck two years ago."

Finn's expression turned angry. "That has nothing to do with this," he said lowly. "Keep out of it."

"It still hurts, right?" Brittany asked. "Well Santana's hurt even worse. Did you know people called her house after that commercial first aired and told her she was going to hell for being gay? They still do, Finn. She gets hate mail. _Hate mail_. People send her pamphlets about redeeming herself and about gay camps and stuff. Then there are the people who walk up to her on the street and tell her to her face that she's a sinner and that she's going to burn in fire for the rest of eternity if she doesn't repent and change her ways. Do you know what that feels like, Finn? We don't live in Los Angeles or New York City. We live in the middle of Ohio and not everyone here is as open-minded as Kurt's dad."

The dumbfounded boy stared at her blankly, just starting to realize the consequences of his actions.

Brittany's voice softened. "Did you know that Santana is very close to her grandmother?" she asked. "She spent every Christmas, birthday, Easter, and major holiday with her grandmother every year. Her Abuela was the one who encouraged her to try out for Cheerios, went to every game she cheered at, every glee concert and competition, every event she ever competed in. Did you know that her Abuela completely disowned her and told her she never wanted to see her again because she's gay?"

He stared at her. "I didn't…."

"This is your fault, Finn," she said, tears leaking down her cheeks. "She's so _hurt_, and I'm the one who's supposed to fix her. Everyone expects me to be the one to pick her up and put her heart back together and make her all better. But I don't know what to do this time besides hold her and that just isn't helping. And all I know is that if you hadn't said anything none of this would have happened."

"She was insulting me!"

"That gives you no right!" Brittany hissed, her eyes narrowing. "Yeah, if you had come up with some stupid insult like she did for you, I would have just told her she deserved it. And she would have gotten over it eventually. And you know what Finn? You can always do things to make her stop insulting you. You can lose weight if you want to. And you're pretty fit; you're the quarterback! But you know what? She can't stop being gay."

She pointed down the hall. "There are people out there who know that Santana's gay before ever meeting her," she said. "That's their first impression. And there will be stupid people who will judge her and hate her and condemn her for that and never give her a chance to show them what an awesome person she is. There are people out there who hate her without even knowing her. And she has no control over that."

"What do you want me to do?" he asked, throwing his hands up in the air. "What can I do to make it right again? I thought I did…."

"You can't," Brittany said, shaking her head. "Because I'll never forgive you. And she'll never forget because that's something you don't forget, especially when coming out is such an important part of a person's life. You never forget how you come out to the people who matter most to you."

"How would you know?" he asked scathingly.

Brittany looked him in the eye. "Because that commercial affected me just as much as it affected Santana," she said. "I had to sit my parents down and tell them that I'm bisexual. I had to tell me grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. And you know what? Not all of them are talking to me anymore. It doesn't matter to me as much because my parents and my sister and my grandparents all love me and I was never very close with anyone else in my family, but it still hurts."

He stared at her with wide eyes.

"I'm so angry at you that you just can't understand it," Brittany said lowly. "You broke Santana's heart, Finn, and I'm trying to put it back together but I just can't. It's like trying to put a puzzle together without having the picture to look off of. I love her so much and I promised her that I would protect her heart, but you just yanked it away and broke it and left for me to clean up. And I will never forgive you for that. Never ever."

"I'm sorry," he whispered, tears in his eyes. "I really am. I know it's not enough, but I'm sorry. And if there's anything I can do…."

"Stay away from me," Brittany said, her eyes hard. "Stay away from me and stay away from Santana. I don't want you coming near either of us. We can pretend like we don't hate you but I don't want you talking to us or pretending to be friends with us. I'll do things with you in glee but that's it. Past that, I don't want anything to do with you ever again."

He nodded and swallowed and stepped back away from her, then took another step, and stepped again and kept going until he turned around and ran down the hall. Brittany didn't even care if she made him feel bad, which was weird because she hated when people felt bad about themselves, but at this point… at this point she didn't care what happened to Finn anymore.

She slid down the lockers and began to sob, her body shaking as she let everything wash over her. As she let the realization she'd come to during her conversation with Finn fully come over her. She wasn't just mad because he'd hurt Santana. He'd hurt her, too.

"Britt?"

The blonde looked up to see Santana walking quickly down the hall toward her, a worried look on her face. She dropped her books on the ground knelt next to Brittany, her hands fluttering around the girl as she tried to figure out what to do.

"What happened, Britt?" she asked quietly, her voice soothing and gentle.

Brittany shook her head and leaned into Santana.

"Baby, what happened?"

"I talked to Finn," Brittany said through her tears and Santana's body tensed instantly. "He… I didn't realize, or know… I thought I was just doing it for you, but…."

"But he hurt you just as much as he hurt me," Santana murmured understandingly. "You know what makes all this better?"

She pulled away slightly to look in Brittany's eyes. "Having you," she whispered, gently tucking a stray piece of hair behind the blonde's ear. "I know that as long as you're here to love me and hold me and comfort me and tell me that it's going to be okay, I can get through anything. And I'll do exactly the same for you. I love you."

"I love you, too," Brittany whimpered, holding on tightly to the front of Santana's shirt as she struggled to calm herself.


End file.
